10 things that are surprisingly unsustainable // unexpected impact pt 1
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- Опубліковано 4 чер 2024
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I never buy plants. I had a few plants in the apartment I moved in 2 years ago and since then, I've propagated them and exchanged them with other people. Here in Romania we have a ton of Plant swap Facebook groups. I've managed to get from 4-5 plants to a bit over 100, without buying any 🌿🌵 I think it's a great way to still keep plants without having such a negative impact.
Aw a plant-swab group is such a good idea!! 😍🌿
That's goals!
This is true, I bought 3 plants during the pandemic because of cut and grow, and swap...now I have lotsa varieties and already packed in a room. Some I share for free or gift and upcycling plastic container waste for the grow and swap...so no need to buy new pot also
As for houseplants:
In my city there is a "plant asylum" where you can donate and adopt plants. I love getting my plants there and I donate them when I no longer have enough space, or when I can't figure out how to take care of them.
Also a couple of my plants were rescued from friends who were not taking care of them, proud to say all of those are now flourishing!
And in the Netherlands there is a company called "Kneusjesbox" which takes "leftover" plants that don't look good enough to hit the shelves of shops. These are still "new" plants, but I guess it still does not contribute as much to the demand for perfectly curated plants from shops :D
🌿plant asylum🌿 that is so cute!! I love that 😍
As for the charging overnight: that's actually not how the battery charging schematics work. When a phone is fully charged it doesn't start to discharge the battery and recharge it right away, but it just drains the power for its operation right from the network. So you "waste" it anyway as long as you keep your phone turned on. However those are pretty minuscule amounts of energy anyway...
The battery charging thing is definitely true, but most companies already know this and have programed the phone so that when your phone tells you 0%, the battery is actually only at 20% and the phone will automatically shut off to preserve its life. Same on the other end, when you read "100%" your battery is actually only at 80% because it is not being fully charged. Most modern day batteries are programmed like this to preserve their life span. So don't stress about the way you charge your phone... the programmers are making it easy for you!
There's a small buffer left on either end of the charge window but it's much less than 20 percent in most cases. This differs per device: cars will have a larger buffer than phones as people expect their car's battery to last longer than their phone's. Keeping your phone battery between 20 and 80 percent will extend its life by up to 6 times.
But also don't forget the very real existence of planned obsolescence and how they'll fuck your battery life despite it's actual health when they decide they gotta sell the next model
I’m very privileged to work in an organic zero waste store. Which means I get to buy all my things at work for a discounted price. Honestly feel very lucky every single day.
For plant pots, I found out that people were throwing them away even if they ware in good condition, so I started picking them up. Except for some specialized pots that I had to buy, all my pots are recovered. I love being able to do that.
Me too! I also find pots with plants in them so it's a whole adventure to rehabilitate the plant back...
I would love a more in dept video on sustainable plants 💚🌱
Look around for local "weeds" you like , ID them make sure they aren't poisonous. Right now a lot of plants are producing seeds.
one of the best things you can do is just buy a plant only AFTER you have researched it and know you aren't going to kill it so you have to send it to a landfill and buy another one. This trend with "influencers" to buy extremely expensive plants just to make videos "oh look, I'm killing plants! and its ok because its my money!" is really disturbing. There are lot of plants that don't belong in homes, and influencers are out to find them all and kill them for likes and subscribes.
house plants are grown in PEAT, which is not only extremely high on carbon emission but also a danger for habitat loss. I would actually like to have a video on it if you haven't already? I think the house plant phenomenon is worth investigating
Except if you don't buy / do that. Coconut coir or just normal compost (if you need it less nutrient dense, stretch with paper shreddings or wood fibre) are perfectly valid alternatives.
You are completely correct about the use of peat being an absolute disgrace, not least because its so unnecessary.
Just a scoop of backyard dirt and some of our compost. Just because we can buy things does not mean we have to.
Peat is not necessarily unsustainable. It all depends on how it is produced.
@@saulemaroussault6343 peat takes decades to form. Harvesting that changes the environment for generations of humans. Therefore peat is unsustaineble.
Normally you can choose non-peat soil. All my plants have non-peat soil (the ones that have is because I salvaged the plant from a friend)
I think it's great that you included wish-cycling, it is a really big issue. I think there needs to be more local information about what is and what is not recyclable. For example in England (possibly all of the UK?) Pizza boxes even if it has oil stains is recycled as long as there is no food left on the cardboard and so are receipts (they use different paper) but in loads of places they are not recyclable.
I know that my beloved plant collection isn't sustainable. And I knew for years, yet I keep growing my collection. To be honest, living in my very personal indoor jungle has been one of the few joys in my life, along with my pets, which aren't sustainable as well. They are the creatures that make my days every day and as much as I care for the environment, I haven't felt guilty one bit for doing what I need to love life. :)
I’ve become more aware of the impact my choices have on the environment, but it gets overwhelming because there are so many other things to think and worry about as well. Most things a regular person without a considerable amount of disposable income and time (+ there are accessibility issues) does on a daily basis are unsustainable in some way. There are things (some of which are listed in this video) that are easily doable and should be done, but ultimately it is the big companies that need to change for everything to change. I’d like to see them be held accountable instead of having the responsibility dumped on us ‘small’ people to make us feel guilty about the things in life that bring us joy. I’m not accusing Gittemary of anything btw, it’s just an opinion, and this comment triggered it lol
@@upstairsfig Couldn't agree more. Thank you for sharing your thoughts :)
if you are buying responsibly, like researching and know you aren't going to kill it your carbon footprint is a lot smaller than people that think "its my money and its just a plant" and kill them and replace them, rinse, repeat.
you only said that to annoy people didnt you
@@illusionist1244 most of what I do is aimed at annoying people. How else am I going to keep them away? 😬
1. House plants
2. Wish-cycling (throwing something in the recycling because you really want it to be recycled or because you don't know if it is recyclable)
3. Chewing gum (contains plastic *IN* the gum)
4. Non-native, monoculture grass lawns
5. Returning online purchases
6. Fabric softener (also bad for your clothes)
7. Charging electronics overnight (bad for your phone battery and uses extra energy)
8. Organic waste (not composted food waste, etc.)
9. Non-organic cotton products
10. Half bio-plastic, half regular or recycled plastic
I buy most of my plants as small cuttings from small local businesses via Etsy etc. I also have a worm farm! 🪱 So all my plants are fertilised from our household food waste ☺️ and I’ll often water them using fish tank water when I’ve done a water change 👍🏻
That sounds like absolute goals 😍🌿💚
That is so cool!!! Could you tell me more about your worm farm? I’ve heard great things about them but how much time does it take to manage a small one? And can it be done on a really small scale?
@@laurensims4836 So my worm farm is from a company called The Urban Worm. They use repurposed materials to make the farms plus they do small ones. Ours is only 10L and super small! There’s honestly hardly any maintenance at all! Only when your tub is full of compost do you need to really do anything and we’ve had ours over a year and not had to do that yet ☺️
For plants. I started a plant swap! Just a cabinet from the thrift store in my front yard where people can bring and take plants, seedlings, propagations and seeds. Make a local FB group and see your community grow. It's a lot of fun and takes very little effort. Haven't bought a new plants for ages.
Also, there are a lot of local FB groups where people trade plants and propagations. Seek those out 🤗
TLDR:
Houseplants
Wish-cycling
Chewing gum
Grass lawns
Returning items you bought online
Fabric softener
overnight charging
Organic waste
cotton products (especially single use)
50/50 bio plastic
Wow so glad you mentioned it! I had heard that NOT letting your battery get to 0% is bad for its lifespan. Will change this asap!
Me too! What an eye opener this video is!
That was true, but for older generation batteries.
Battery memory is what we're talking about when we're worried about losing battery capacity due to the way it is charged and discharged. Although commercial battery chemistry hasn't significantly advanced recently, charging circuitry has changed. The situations where battery could develop "memory" are now protected against automatically. These situations include too much discharge and overcharge. So in many devices the consumer doesn't need to worry about protecting their battery because of the device design. Obviously this varies between products but with most smart phones, there's protective circuitry.
Most of my plants I got by propagating my family's plants. For me, the most enjoyable and rewarding part of having plants is rooting and propagating them, so I try to never get already big ones.
I have lots of plants because I've always loved nature and I'm not able to leave my house very often due to chronic illness.
I love to swap my propagation and swap 'em with my plant buddies, that way is more sustainable and rewarding for me, being able to grow a tiny plant by myself and also something that reminds me every day about my friends.
A little tip: collecting rain water and store it for watering plants throughout the year!
the problem with wish-cycling is honestly that it only really takes one or a few people not doing it right, before an entire load is just thrown in to general waste.
i see so much poor sorting where i live, it's depressing, i've even seen people just dumping everything in to the food waste bin, because the correct bin was full, and i guess walking a little to the nearest bin that wasn't full was just too much hassle.
i used to try and sort it out myself, but eventually just kinda gave up. it's just too much and too widespread where i live.
i honestly kind of think we need to assume people are complete idiots when designing recycling systems in the future - it's sad, but it'd be the best way to rule out human error.
Where I live, everyone just seems to throw it on the floor of the "recycle building".
I would argue somethings do thrive in a monoculture. Dandelions love my lawn. Their thriving 😂
They can thrive in concrete, they are absolutely amazing 😂👌
Last winter, I had my cell phone safety tucked in my nightstand. It was at 100%. Apparently it was a bit chilly in my bedroom. That bad boy dropped to 10%. Note to self-make cell phone a cute sweater 😂
A lot of my houseplants are actually edible plants. I have several curry leaf plants grown from seed, for example. Being able to get leaves from them (or my other unusual food plants) saves me driving 70 or more miles to get to a store where I can buy exotic ingredients.
I also get annoyed with wish-cycling and the general misuse of recycling bins. I went to deposit my cardboard at the local drop off, and when I opened the bin, I saw a sofa inside it! I understand they probably did it to get rid of their sofa for free instead of paying the disposal fees for it, but it ruins everything else in the bin. I see people putting regular trash in them too. I’ve even had issues with someone dumping trash into my personal recycling bin (outside of my house).
I've always been a huge fan of plants. My friends and I swap cuttings. Additionally my neighbour rescues old or tired looking plants from offices which are destined for landfill and I love them back to life and re-home them. My oldest plant is a monstera which I've take cuttings from for about 30 years to pass along. I've also taken cuttings from her children etc. She officially a great great grandmother ☺️
Awesome!!! Great grandma monstera! 😆😆😆
I've actually heard that you're not supposed to use vinegar in your laundry because it can destroy parts of the machine. Personally I don't think fabric softener makes a difference at all, so I never used it or an alternative. I don't find you need it. Kind of like wool dryer balls instead of dryer sheets. Just don't use anything at all, it's fine! (obviously not using a dryer at all is best)
Really good point!
Put soda bicarbonate
Softens the water and helps the washing machine clean and you get away with using less washing thing
@@inesladasic7106 how much sodium bicarbonate? In some countries the water is so full of calcium that you do need something, otherwise your towel are hard as carboards.
I use vinegar for more then 25 years never had a problem
"It's not me, it's you." I'm dead 😂
If I buy things online and need to return them, I resell them to someone else if I can afford to lose a bit of money at that time. I don’t really buy much so it’s only happened once in the last 6 months, but I’m just so worried about things being disposed of!
Also be careful of using vinegar regularly because it can degrade the inside of your washing machine over time! I use it only to wash my guinea pigs bedding if it is very stinky, and to wash cleaning cloths when I do that wash every two weeks.
I had no idea vinegar could do that! I don't wash with vinegar often, just when I get new clothes because it help set fabric dye or prevent fabric bleeding but that is interesting.
Many parts are now made with a metal that is not doping with vinegar. 70 years a go they made things for life, now for profit
In terms of overnight charging, how does it work together with places that encourage energy use at night (e.g. delaying running stuff like the washing machine and the dishwasher) because of the overall energy grid requiring lower energy supply and it balancing overall energy demand throughout the day?
I was wondering about it as well since I have a day-night rate electricity meter. Also, my phone has a special mode of overnight charging when you can plan what time it should get to 100%
In my case, my phone charges pretty fast, so I just plug it in as soon as I wake up and it's ready by the time I'm ready for the day. This will depend on your schedule and the grid schedule though. Overall, I'd say keeping your electronics working in good order for as long as possible is way more environmentally friendly than using energy at a slightly worse time. The energy that went into producing that battery has a way bigger impact. Not to mention the terrible waste it will result in at end-of-life. At least until we have better methods of battery recycling.
I have a timeclock i add in the mix. My phone charges in 2 hours. Whenever i charge IT i put the timeclock on and when that hits 2 hours 2 minutes the power is cut off. I often put IT to charge when i go for a shower, Read a bit.
For houseplants, one of my local greenhouses mostly propagates & grows their own plants and the pots...vary. Sometimes they're in reused pots, sometimes they're not. I've noticed more greenhouses, low waste shops, and my local Home Depot have all started collecting both nicer pots and the basic plastic ones to reuse. I just save mine to plant summer plants in.
Wow just found this channel, brilliant. One thing I saw on the news this week was keeping unwanted pics or documents in cloud storage. The stats where shocking on how much energy and emissions are produced by us having all this digital data sitting in storage. So dump all those unwanted pics and files folks.
I've been always into gardening and houseplants. I mostly got my plants from my mum's office as rescues or i've been to a lot of swaps. I Also share cuttings of my plants with my friends. I'm not saying i've never bought any plant, but now i'm trying other different ways to be more sustainable.
One of my greatest realizations was, that I don’t need any shower gel or face cleanser at all. My skin got so much better since i stopped using them, and instead just use water.
Sadly not using shampoo didn’t work so far. But I’m still working on that.
So; in many cases it’s not a question of what product or material is better than the other, but „do I need this at all?“
I stopped using facial cleansing products years ago and I'm so glad. I also stopped buying ANY creams and lotions. I get olive and coconut oils in bulk and keep it in the bathroom as well as the kitchen and it's luxurious on my skin. I love it
The best way to never have to return an online product is to take the time to visit local shops, boutiques and stores when we need something! This way, like our parents and grandparents used to do, we can try clothes and shoes on, touch them, see where they were made and what they really are made of (not always mentioned when sold online). Buy only what you need in general, and only buy online if it is something that is absolutely not available in your area with no close equivalent to it, Over the last decades with online purchases we have become so spoilt/picky when buying something specific that environmental issues mean absolutely nothing to the vast majority of people, and this is encouraged by too many UA-camrs/influencers who make the problem worse and people buy without thinking. I am so grateful for channels like yours! Thank you :)
I curb surf for plastic nursery pots for my garden, and hanging pots of petunias that just need to cut back and soaked and I get a pot and free flowers.
This was so informative! Especially the info about how to best charge my phone and about the bio plastic. Thank you. You really know your stuff.
Excellent point about wish cycling! So important to be know what can really be recycled. It is always better to reuse or repurpose items! Amazing video as always! Thanks so much for what you do 💚💚💚!
Oh good I’ve been growing from seed! :) and the plastic pots I do have are used to help grow those little seedlings!
A lawn is better than tiles. I mow IT once a week, let the edge go wild and it is 10 years 'old'. Some Moss and clover got in. I have 3000 liters of rainwater storage. If i water IT i do that walking around with rainwater. I Use 200 liter once or twice a year. My Trees, bushes and roses are getting more water.
A lawn that is golfready and watered 40 minutes every 2nd Day.. yeah that is bad.
you can put pizza boxes in your compost. the whole box. just watched through the whole video, and i learned alot!. i worked for a waste management company in california and thought i knew it all. thank you for your insightful and educational video. its nice to hear things broken down so everyone can understand without feeling like im being lectured. you made this nice to watch.
Pizza boxes work great in the garden. I use cardboard as weed blocker under my mulch. I encourage people to ditch smartphones. I have a flip phone and I love it. It only needs charging like twice a week. I can wait until I am home to be on the internet. I’ve been wanting to move away from single use cotton! Thanks for the reminder!
The best thing with plants, is just ask a friend if they can give you part of theirs. My dad had a second aloe plant sprout in his pot, so he gave me one. It's not doing the best, but it's nice to get things from people you know, since it helps both of you.
I'm allergic to fabric softener, and I have no idea why it still exists... Baking soda is great for getting rid of scent though, a nurse taught me that because she works at a clinic that's entirely fragrance free for people with allergies like myself.
I use brown cardboard, including dirty pizza boxes, in my garden under fabric grow bags and as a base for raised beds.
I'm addicted to plants and do buy some. I propagate them a LOT too tho. My mom lives across the street from a nursery. When I go with her to walk out dogs I ALWAYS dumpster dive there and get all sorts of plants from flowers to chile pepper plants. Most survive, some don't, but I try
Propagating plants is easy! We have four snake plants, and they were all propagated from the one main one, and we are about to make a 5th one from it!
As far as pizza boxes, we are allowed to put them into the compost/green bin. Any food stained paper/cardboard (including bakery bags, paper napkins, etc) is allowed to be composted in my part of California. We are very fortunate!
Yea I had heard about the phone charging overnight so I stopped doing that. I also don't let get my battery get to zero. I usually charge it as soon as it hits around 20%. I had heard that 20-80% is the sweet spot. I hardly ever chew gum and don't order clothes online. Unfortunately, I'm not doing well with organic waste. Unfortunately, Ghana waste disposal is inefficient at best. While we compost most of our organic waste for our garden, some still ends up in the general waste 😪. We do what we can.
Wow, cutting out the greasestains in cardbord is so simple, although hilarious 😅 definitely will try to remeber doing that :)
So this is more of a confession than anything, but I've started taking clippings of plants from public gardens to propagate.
most of my plants were given to me as cuttings, or were found on pathways broken off a bigger plant.
But nowadays when I see a particularly over-grown public garden, especially with parts growing over walkways I'll cut off small parts and take them home to grow.
I figure that these overhanging parts would be pruned anyway
In my municipality pizza boxes are collected with recycling but then go to the biofuels plant. So they're technically organics, but the recycling system is better at collecting and sorting them.
I'm weaning my sister off hyperscented liquid fabric softener with Method dryer sheets, and using Grove laundry detergent sheets.
Omg I had NO idea plants were unsustainable! I started propagating my own plants last year, but will look into it more now
Thank you for this video. Good work.
I have heard that cell phone batteries USED to be like that but the more modern ones are now built to be fully charged and depleted regularly. Is that not true?
The best thing I learned from a class that I took at a local nursery was enjoy your houseplant while it is doing well. If you get a couple of years of enjoyment out of it, you're doing well. If it dies, do not mourn its loss.
Houseplants have a limited life span. Throw it in the compost heap and move on! ❤🌻💛
I was sure the usage of the Internet was going to be mentioned in this video^^ I thought some really interesting things were highlighted though! 😊
Super interesting and things I did not know. A great way of having less organic waste is vermicompost in your home. Worms are wonderful pets and you get great fertilizer. :)
I had always thought it was better to use batteries to 0 and then charge to 100. Of course that might be a throw back from the old batteries we had before smart phones. This was super cool and informative video!
There are so many great alternative and sustainable ways to have house plants! The easiest is for sure swapping cuttings or buying cuttings from people in your area. Pots are really cheap second hand and often you can get soil from your city composting facility. In some places, there is even something like a plant shelter, where you can adopt cuttings and plants! I know there is one in Leiden, NL called plantenasiel. Its great!
Oh and if you buy a plant, make sure it is not a species which is often poached from nature. This is a huge issue with Stephanias at the moment and experts really ask people not to buy them at all because there is not a single grower in Europe. So most Stephanias on the European market were probably poached.
A lot of green house plants grow in such a way that you end up with lots of small plants (or several meters of potential cuttings - Devil's Ivy is near unkillable and can take over your living room), ask around if you can't find any for sale on Fb or wherever
leachates in land fills are also a huge issue - if its a traditional land-fill - organic waste ads water to the mix of all the other toxic chemicals making it easier for the toxins to leach into ground water.... and if its a modern capsule landfill, the tip managers have to deal with the (same ) toxic liquid in their capsuals... best to reduce any liquid in "general waste" land fill...
The only one that was surprising to me was house plants. The rest of them I knew already. I gave up fabric softener and "mainstream" laundry detergents well over a decade ago. I've been composting for about 6-7 years. I do have cotton swabs, a large box that I've had forever, but once they're gone, I won't buy more.
i wonder about the last point (haven't seen this kinda mix yet, tbh) - are we talking about different types of plastic/resin? because if they're the same type it shouldn't matter, i.e. the bio-pet and conventional pet are the same thing, chemically speaking
thank you for mentioning the Li-ion battery thing. I've been arguing with friends and colleagues about it for so long..
Only 1big organic cotton farm I know of and its in texas
And children's toys became my main concern. I often find sustainable toys and the pkg is the worst. So 80% of my children's toys are sourced second hand. Same with clothing. We love things for a season and pass them on. Great list.
The lithium battery information is very interesting! My batteries came with instructions to fully charge and discharge x3-5 cycles to make it work better 😅
For the first few cycles? That's strange, the company should do that before selling you the battery.
@@heartofevl720 so they charge the phones Just to drain Them... I van do that myself, while actually using the power..
This is probably to calibrate the sensor within the device which detects battery %
I love the idea of gardening with native plants
i only buy seeds or getting cuts from gardens or supermarket herbs and now i have a small balcony garden
I was told the opposite for battery charging. Ive heard that Not letting your battery hit 0% will deplete your batterys lifetime.
So annoying that UA-cam decided to put greenwashing H&M ads at the end of your video 🤦♀️
Sustainability pet-peeve: when people think using electricity is soooo much better than using fossil fuels. Yes, an electric car will put less pollution in the areas where it is used, but where does the electricity come from? Mostly fossil fuels.
That depends on where you are.
Agreed. The most sustainable form of energy is actually nuclear, but no one wants to talk about that ha
@@emilybeaty27 No, the most sustainable is solar and wind. If the sun is no longer there, there will be no more life on Earth. Radioactive things should have been left in the ground. There is still no safe way to dispose of spent fuel rods, which will be highly and dangerously radioactive for centuries. In addition, the cost of building and the cost of running nuclear plants is so much more than solar and wind, and if something goes wrong, disaster that goes on for many years is a result, can cost lives and will damage the environment, and also the loss of energy production from that damaged plant costs millions of dollars. There is no excuse to ever build a new nuclear plant on this planet, now that we know how to turn solar and wind into electricity. Nuclear should be phased out after coal and gas powered plants are replaced. We have the ability right now to build enough solar and wind capacity world-wide, we just have to get the political will to do so. We really have no choice at this point, if we want a livable future.
@@argusfleibeit1165 The problem with solar and wind is that the energy cannot be stored or transported, it must be used in the same vicinity, which is just not possible for some city locations. It also produces very little energy compared to what a city needs to run.
@@emilybeaty27 Are you some expert with secret knowledge, or just some shill from the nuclear industry? Because experts on alternative energy disagree with you. The problems of storage are being worked on, and the nationwide grid (except for Texas, who doesn't want to play with anybody else, too bad for them) already moves energy around regions as supply and demand changes. With ever-increasing solar arrays, as well as new designs of wind (vertical vortex, etc,) more than enough capacity can be reached. When even as conservative an area as Northeast Georgia has vast community solar farms already online, it is only a matter of time until we can achieve freedom from fossil fuel energy production. The foot-draggers are the entrenched coal and gas industry (like Charles Koch) and the congresspeople they have bought (like Joe Manchin). These people are dinosaurs, and will eventually be overcome, as the public becomes more aware of the inevitable necessity of ending the use of fossil fuel.
great video - thank you!
As a lithium-ion battery scientist, can confirm that you should avoid fully charging or at the very least avoid keeping your batteries at full charge for a long time (overnight charging). This is the fastest way to degrade the battery. Fully discharging it is not as big a deal though...
Thanks for sharing your expert knowledge!
The houseplants I have, over 40 , I get them from gardens of families and friends, so I just have to buy some pots and the other ones I recicle some food and hairproducts containers.
Vinegar isn't good for some washing machines as it ends up damaging the seals and hoses, casuing leaks. So you will end up changing those parts or buy a new machine altogether more often.
I bought houseplants for the first time in over 7 years today and now get recommended this.
Lots of houseplants are also poached and/or overharvested from their natural environment. Grease stained pizza boxes are compostable!
the only plants in my home are ones I can eat such as parsley, basil, lavender, mint. It makes greenery in the house AND I can eat it. Also peppermint grows like crazy so I have small pots where I plant the leftover stems of my cup of tea, it grows and then I just gift it to someone who want some (and tell tell to never plant that in the soil outside because it WILL strangle everything around and it's almost impossible to remove after) Keep your peppermint in pots folk
To piggyback on returning online purchases: one problem in that chain are media outlets with web presences constantly publishing lists of things that will make your life absolutely perfect. Most of the things they advertise are trash and end up being returned because they don't live up to overhyped expectations.
I got my monstera when it was a baby and gave it a big pot. It grew so fast its unbelievable. My other plants I got from family and friends when their plants got babys
Honestly, with two cats, I just got myself real looking fake plants because 1. Plants die on me easily or get flies 2. Most plants are slightly to highly toxic for cats. I care for them and just try to keep them looking good for as long as i can.
The charging thing is the opposite of what I was told. I was told that if you dont charge it completely to 100% it would damage the battery. Here I was thinking I was doing the right thing by not unplugging it at 80% now you're saying I was damaging the phone.
Landfills do layer each day's trash with a layer of soil over it so it decomposes faster. It's not just a large pit of garbage like one might assume. It's actually a very carefully engineered process that is designed to be as sustainable as possible, given the circumstances. There are underground vents that capture and trap the methane gas, which is then turned into energy for any nearby residents to use. The landfill, when full, is topped off with a fresh layer of soil and native plants to that area. It becomes a wild life preserve for local habitats and is not developed for urban use. Obviously the less we can send to landfills the better, but they really aren't as bad as everyone thinks.
This is true but needs a bit more context. There are good examples of modern landfills around the world that capture greenhouse gas emissions and leachate, and are able to generate energy. However, this is not true everywhere. Even in developed countries, there will be a mixture of different landfills around. Due to age, the local rate paying population, and many other factors, the quality of landfills can vary significantly. Often leachate (the liquid discharge from landfills) and gas emissions are not well captured.
It is especially important to keep organic waste out of landfill. One reason is that it will produce far more methane as it breakdowns inside a landfill than it would as compost, and methane is a potent greenhouse gas that we want to minimise.
[I am an environmental engineer, although landfills are not my professional specialty.]
love the video!
OMG those earrings and necklaces, they're beautiful!!!! Are they second hand too??
I think the “fresh” scents from laundry detergent and fabric softener started when people were trying to simulate the natural scent on laundry which has been line dried outside. It is an amazing scent!
Scented laundry products have hazardous chemicals and are likely to cause cancer.
I personally opt for dye free fragrance free cleaning products including laundry detergent and fabric softener. When I don’t use fabric softener my clothes and towels get rough and it irritates my skin.
@@sarcasticallyyours Have you tried dryer balls? I've been using wool dryer balls for 6-7 years and haven't used fabric softener at all. No rough towels or clothes.
@@lynnhettrick7588 yes I use those instead of the dryer sheets. But I’ve noticed a difference when using fabric softener even when hang drying clothes.
I put glass beer bottles in our recycling for like a year before we learned they weren’t actually recyclable because the facility doesn’t have the machinery to process it. Crazy.
There are some countries where people gather those bottles and sell them to some industries who used them so in my case I left them at the side of the container and someone takes them so you are helping someone to get some money.
As good as the vinegar instead of a fabric softener sounds, I have read that it can actually damage rubber parts of the washing machine 😏 so I only use it sparingly now, just to be safe
I use it now for over 25 years frequently... never had a problem
Greasy pizza box: can be used as mushroom growing substrate! You just need help from fungus to compost this.
There are a local swap plants groups in France. We can get very nice plants and it's fun meeting passionate people
thank you good info
We have gaint compost/gardening bins that get pulled every week with trash where I live. I just throw the whole pizza box in, no deconstruction is needed.
All of my house plants are either cuttings or grown from food scraps
Vinegar as fabric conditioner, I discovered recently, is not sustainable unfortunately, and quite polluting.
If I can suggest an alternative, go for a mix of 500ml of tap water + 2 tbsp of citric acid.
It is few months that I used it now (together with my homemade laundry detergent), and it works pretty well.
Hope this helps.
Sorry if it's a stupid question, but why is it unsustainable and polluting?
@@alicezanini6123 one of the main points by the way is that Acetic acid (found in Vinegar) pollutes 53 more than Citric acid. It creates a very acidic environment for marine ecosystem and it is corrosive, so we should avoid to use it in the washing machine.
Almost nothing actually gets recycled except for aluminum. Most stuff either goes into landfill or gets incinerated. In a few places, water bottles get recycled, but that's it for plastic. So don't stress about non recyclables getting in there. It's all going to the same place.
Great video! The subtitles showed your name as Kitty Mary 😸
haha yeah it tends to do that 😂👌
In my areas waste stream pizza boxes go in the green compost waste bin
Plants are unsustainable depending your region on the planet. I get my plants from the Botanica which either grow the plants themselves at the store or they get them at local nurseries. In live in South Florida, so local nurseries are very common and extremely sustainable. The plants that aren't tend to be the ones that Home Depot sell which are imported. I do buy one or two at Home Depot due to saving them. They thrive at my garden really well, especially near other plants. Who knew plants are social beings. They also love mulch.
Yes! Grass lawns are bad, lawn mowers are very polluting too. Go out and find some local weeds you think are pretty and collect the seeds. If you want to kill of some grass to give the seeds a start, pour boiling water on a patch, not the whole lawn. I only have house plants I can eat, have cherry tomatoes all winter. Potting soil made from peat and comes plastic bags is not sustainable. Make your own: get a plastic bucket go to a local stable or farm and ask for some manure, or get some compost, mix with the same amount of fine gravel or sand, add about 5% wood ash from a fire pit or BBQ grill.
I'm late to the party, but I really don't like labels that don't come off, especially from glass, any percent recycled plastic + virgin plastic, because that seems to me as if they're lowering its lifespan even more, bags with plastic lining that is hard to tear apart and coloured plastic bottles, because then you have facilities that divide the plastic trash by colour and it makes it harder to recycle it. Can't we just have white or clear containers with labels?
Proud I knew some of these
What a joy to find your channel.
Loved to see this vid.
How about meat production??? I can’t hardly think of something more unsustainable?
Would you consider making a video about it?
I have SO many videos about it hehe 😅🥳 check out my video about animal ag on the impact playlist, or any from my food/veganism playlist 🌿
@@Gittemary will have a look right away…
fabric softener fabric sheets especially febeze products make me gag. i live in a apartment building and my windows are above the laundry room dryer vents. when someone uses these in the dryer i call it "death by dryer sheet" and have to close my windows, leave my balcony and then after use fans to air out the smell.
I quit chewing gum when I learned about it was plastic based. I don't miss it at all and I save money too.